Walking Away
by Vixen of Light
Summary: Sora wonders if she made the right decisions in life - anti Sorato, some Taiora


A/N: One shot - Sora's thoughts later on in life. Not anti-Sora but anti- Sorato, reviews are nice but no flames from angry Sorato supporters - really, if you don't like don't read, blah blah etc etc. . .I don't like the couple but I'm not saying you can't. No flames. That's it.  
  
She always woke before him, every day, without exception. And as she lay on the warm sheets, wrapped in his arms and listening to him breathe, softly, she would think - she could just walk away, even now. Out of the window she could see the street, apartment buildings lit by the early sun, full of content people, maybe, or ones who knew how to be happy with what they had (and really, she knew, she had so much, was it that she was ungrateful?) and would stay in their lives, the same, for ever. Beyond the buildings, trees, roads she had not travelled, places she had not seen. Maybe it was that easy, she could just walk out of the house, walk down those roads and keep on walking into the sunset at the other end of time, a bad movie scene, and never look back. But she knew she never would. Sora Ishida. Mrs Matt Ishida. When she signed the name it looked alien on the page, as if it was not her at all but she was an actress paid to play a part, a Truman Show in her own life, living in some bubble of every other woman's dream. Oh, she knew half the world would murder to take her place, she heard every day "Matt Ishida? THE Matt Ishida, you're his wife? So lucky!" and every time the spiralling guilt, hatred and caged feelings writhed in her mind and even as she smiled a blank, professional smile and commented in return, she wondered if she would go mad.  
  
Love - that was supposed to be her trait, the Crest of Love, she should know it if no-one else did and yet, even as Matt himself before her doubted his Crest, now she did too. What was she, some sort of whore caged by the man everyone wanted? Caged bird - she felt it, too.  
  
And the guilt was driving her mad, so mad. . . she had the perfect life, the husband, the children, the job - and yet now she knew how things rotted beneath perfection. And she would stare out the window and wonder what could have been along that road if she had taken it, walked the other way when Matt had asked her to marry him, followed her own road or Tai or. . .  
  
Tai - now there was a thought. Her eyes closed slowly and she relaxed back against her downy pillow. She and Matt had gone to watch Tai playing soccer just the other day and Sora had been amazed to feel a warmth in her heart that had not plagued her for years. And then he, too, had just shaken her hand, his firm and warm, hers limp and moist, and congratulated her and Matt again, slapped his best friend's back and he, too, had walked away, able to, free. Sora had watched him leave long after Matt had headed back to the car, and thought how her life would have been different had she accepted his invitation to Matt's high school concert all those years ago instead of going in to see Matt. And yet she wasn't even sure she could have loved him either, maybe she didn't know how. And yet she thought of him often, boyish smile, bright brown eyes, and occasionally when Matt held her, when they made love, it was Tai's face in her mind and his voice echoing terribly in her ears, and the guilt was agonising and yet it was a perfectly unconscious reaction - she pleaded with the gods at night to blank her mind and let her love Matt as he deserved and yet they never did and she lay awake, wondering if she was such a bad person that it was her fault.  
  
Her eyes flickered open again and she stared and stared at the cream and lilac wallpaper until her vision blurred. Next to her, Matt shifted slightly in his sleep, turned away from her and settled again, one arm draped at an almost impossible angle over her still. She shrugged him gently off and turned her gaze to the window again. The sun was brightening, giving the room a pleasant, cozy feel, shining on dust motes in the air around them. Outside those content people were rising, calling to each other for breakfast and bathroom queues, friendly morning abuse and chatter. In the Ishida household everything was always as picture-perfect as their image, kiss for the wife, hug for the children, breakfast at the family table. Sometimes silence - amiable silence, but silence still. An actress again or a model in a photo shoot, maybe Kari would come along and take a picture and then they would all disperse and go their own ways.  
  
Matt was a friend above all else, they had never lost that. It confused her, friendship and love merging together, was there no cut-off point between the two things? Where did one start and the other stop? Which was she feeling when she looked at Matt's chiselled face, burning blue eyes? She would shake and turn away and turn her gaze back to the window and dream that she was walking down that road, no luggage, no baggage, just her own two feet, walking until she could do so no longer, collapsed to the ground and yet she would be free, that would be enough. Everything she would leave behind would be the things she should not have involved herself in, in the first place and maybe, because of that, they would be happier without her.  
  
Beside her, Matt woke completely, smiled at her, leaned in to kiss her cheek.  
  
"Good morning love," he said, and she smiled back. She did love him, oh yes, he was a part of her life like all her friends, dear to her beyond imagining. She was by no means unhappy, exactly, just. . .wistful. And as he rose to dress, prepare for the day ahead, she lay still in bed, and her eyes were pulled unstoppably to the window and she thought again of just walking out, down that immeasurable road, into the hazy blue sky outside. She lay back down and imagined herself walking away, no ties, no feelings, no responsibilities. Her eyes closed slightly and she watched the shadowed outline of her husband moving around the room.  
  
Walking away? Maybe tomorrow. 


End file.
